It has been practiced that information is distributed continuously for a predetermined period of time as in the case of stream distribution etc to a multi-function device such as a battery-operable personal computer (which will hereinafter be abbreviated to a PC).
The stream distribution is that a server side (which will hereinafter be referred to as a transmitting side) has, e.g., a moving picture content such as pictures in the form of data and distributes the information such as the moving picture content to the PC continuously for the predetermined period of time. The PC side (which will hereinafter be referred to as a receiving side) reproduces the distributed information while receiving the information. This type of reproduction of the moving picture content is called stream reproduction. If the stream reproduction target moving picture content is charged with a fee, a fee-charging process is executed for the stream reproduction (or the stream distribution).    [Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-011282    [Patent document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-256084    [Patent document 3] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-338829    [Patent document 4] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-164838    [Patent document 5] Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-527134    [Patent document 6] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H11-69017    [Patent document 7] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-314711    [Patent document 8] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-050761